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Donald Trump the Pro Turkish dictator Erdogan, opposes congressional restrictions on F-35 sale to Turkey

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The Armenian National Committee of American, In Defense of Christians and the Hellenic American Leadership Council expressed sharp disappointment Friday over the Trump Administration’s newly revealed opposition to Congressional restrictions upon the sale of advanced F-35 aircraft to Turkey.The Trump Administration relayed its position in a letter from Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of the Management and the Budget, to Senator Richard Shelby, the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, Asbarez reports. In his letter, Director Mulvaney wrote:

The Administration opposes section 7046(d)(3) of the [Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations] bill that restricts the use of funding for the transfer of F-35 aircraft to Turkey.

Turkey is an important NATO ally, and has been an international participant with the F-35 program since 2002. The Administration shares the Congress’s concerns over recent Turkish actions but opposes language that preemptively restricts its ability to work with Turkey to address those concerns.ANCA, IDC and HALC categorically reject the Administration’s position:“President Trump’s opposition to the bipartisan consensus around common-sense restrictions on the reckless transfer of F-35 aircraft to Turkey dramatically reduces American leverage, undercutting our ability to secure either Turkey’s release of Pastor Andrew Brunson or to prevent Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles.

Sadly, by taking this short-sighted stand, President Trump is signaling weakness, seriously undermining America’s negotiating position toward Erdogan’s Turkey.

We encourage Congressional leaders to move quickly to enact statutory restrictions on F-35 and other advanced weapons sales/transfers to Turkey, and, more broadly, to undertake a long over-due policy review of U.S. relations with the increasingly hostile Turkish regime.”

 

Trump claims Germany ‘totally controlled’ by Russia, airs list of grievances

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By S.A. Miller – The Washington Times – Updated: 8:10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Opening the NATO summit in Brussels with a bang Wednesday, President Trump blasted Germany for a pipeline project that he said made Germany “totally controlled by Russia.”

“I think it’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia where we’re supposed to be guarding against Russia,” Mr. Trump said at a breakfast with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Mr. Trump said Germany was “captive to Russia” and urged NATO to look into the issue.

“The former chancellor of Germany is head of the pipeline company that’s supplying the gas,” Mr. Trump said. “You tell me, is that appropriate? I’ve been complaining about this from the time I got here.”

The president was calling out the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany’s northeastern Baltic coast, which would bypass Eastern European nations and double the amount of gas that Russia can pipe directly to Germany.

The pipeline already has opponents among some NATO nations.

“Very bad thing for NATO,” Mr. Trump said. “I think we have to talk to Germany about it.”

Mr. Trump’s charges flipped the narrative about Russia, which previously centered on his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Trump’s summit next with with Mr. Putin in Helsinki, Finland, has been criticized for giving Moscow and NATO equal billing.

Mr. Trump also criticized Germany for failing to spend the agreed upon 2 percent of GDP on NATO defense.

 

Trump calls historic nuclear talks with Kim ‘better’ than expected

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North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump at the start of their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore on June 12, 2018.

“It was not easy to get here,” the North Korean leader said, noting the two sides “overcame” obstacles to finally meet face to face in Singapore.

SINGAPORE — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his historic meeting here with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un went “better than anybody could’ve expected” and that the two leaders would be “signing” something before they parted ways.

But neither Trump nor Kim provided details on any possible agreement at the end of a half-day of meetings centered around U.S. efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

The summit was historic in and of itself: the first-ever meeting between an American president and his North Korean counterpart.

The first in a series of dramatic moments came as Trump and Kim shook hands Tuesday morning.

As the two men approached each other on a colonnade at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island here, with American and North Korean flags interspersed behind them, reporters could hear Kim or his interpreter say, “Nice to meet you, Mr. President.”

Then, they posed for photographs, stern-faced, before making their way to a meeting room where they spoke briefly to the media.

“We will have a terrific relationship,” Trump said. “I have no doubt.”

US and North Korea begin preparations for historic summit

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President Donald Trump said ‘excitement is in the air’ in Singapore ahead of his meeting with Kim Jong Un. North Korean state media heralded the summit as ‘a changed era’ for Washington and Pyongyang.

Preparations for the unprecedented meeting between North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and the President of the United States Donald Trump in Singapore began in earnest on Monday.

The event marks the first time a sitting US president meets a North Korean leader. It is also the first time Kim Jong Un makes a journey of this kind since taking office in 2011, aside from short visits to China and the South Korean side of the border Demilitarized Zone.

What we know so far:

  • The venue for the summit is the Capella Hotel on the resort island of Sentosa, near the port of Singapore.
  • Kim Jong-Un’s delegation includes top officials such as Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, Defense Minister No Kwang Chol and close aide Kim Yong Chol.
  • Donald Trump’s delegation includes Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
  • As a first order of business, officials from the US and North Korean delegation held a meeting early on Monday, lead by former US ambassador to South Korea and current ambassador to the Phillipines, Sung Kim.
  • President Donald Trump will meet with the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong later on Monday.
  • Kim and Trump are set to meet in person on Tuesday at 9 a.m. Singapore time (0100 UTC).
  • According to a US official, who spoke anonymously to the AP news agency, Trump and Kim will meet one on one with translators in a session that could last up to two hours and will then bring in their respective advisors to the meeting.

US optimism

The Trump administration is hoping that the summit will lead to an agreement on North Korea’s denuclearization in exchange for eased diplomatic and economic sanctions on Pyongyang.

A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the administration would “not be surprised” by any scenario that the meeting could yield, saying that given North Korea’s long history of developing nuclear weapons, Trump’s team would approach Pyongyang with a mix of optimism and skepticism.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that President Trump spent his flight from Canada to Singapore “meeting with his staff, reading materials and preparing for his meetings.” Trump tweeted that “excitement” was in the air after he touched down in the small Asian nation

A ‘changed era’

The North Koreans noted that the summit was being held “under the great attention and expectation of the whole world,” according to the official report of the event by state broadcaster KCNA.

The state-run agency said that both leaders would exchange “wide-ranging and profound views” on establishing a new relationship, the issue of building a “permanent and durable peace mechanism” and realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

KCNA celebrated the momentous occasion, saying that the summit marked “a changed era.”

Donald Trump pardons Alice Marie Johnson after Kim Kardashian West plea

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President Donald Trump has pardoned Alice Marie Johnson, the great-grandmother whom Kim Kardashian West advocated for in a White House meeting last week, People has learned.

The White House announced the news in a statement on Wednesday, saying: “Ms. Johnson has accepted responsibility for her past behavior and has been a model prisoner over the past two decades.”

“While this Administration will always be very tough on crime, it believes that those who have paid their debt to society and worked hard to better themselves while in prison deserve a second chance,” the statement added.

The pardon comes after Kardashian West met with the president at the White House last week to plead for clemency for Johnson, a 63-year-old first-time nonviolent drug offender who in 1996 was given a life sentence without parole.

Inside the summit collapse: Trump wanted to cancel before North Korean leader could

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President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel the summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was made at the last minute after serious disagreements among White House aides, NBC News has learned. In particular, the new national security adviser, John Bolton, helped convince Trump to back out, blindsiding Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The president, fearing the North Koreans might beat him to the punch, wanted to be the one to cancel first, multiple officials told NBC News.

Trump congratulates Pashinyan on election – embassy

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YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. US President Donald Trump has congratulated Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on his recent election through a letter sent via the Armenian Embassy in Washington. The letter is dated May 14.

“Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

Congratulations on your recent election. I look forward to working with you on the many areas of mutual interest for our two countries, including strengthening trade ties, democratic institutions, and regional security. Progress on fighting corruption, bringing all political parties together, and peacefully solving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will help these efforts and ensure Armenia’s bright future.

Best wishes to you and the people of Armenia”, the letter says.

Nikol Pashinyan was elected Prime Minister by the Armenian parliament on May 8 in the second round of voting.

Follow The Money: Three Billionaires Paved Way For Trump’s Iran Deal Withdrawal

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Follow the Money, Sheldon Adelson (eastcoastgambler via Flickr)

by Eli Clifton

President Donald Trump has just fulfilled a campaign pledge to tear up the Obama administration’s signature foreign policy achievement, a multilateral agreement constraining Iran’s nuclear enrichment (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA). In doing so, the president went against the advice of, among many others, his secretary of defense, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA), Washington’s three most important European allies, and almost-two thirds of Americans who believe that the U.S. should not withdraw from the deal, according to a CNN poll released on Tuesday morning.

Trump appears absolutely determined to undo as much of what Barack Obama accomplished as possible. In addition, the sheer perversity of his personality may well explain today’s action. But it may also be useful to follow the apocryphal advice that Watergate’s famous “Deep Throat” offered to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in All the President’s Men, particularly in the unbelievably corrupt swamp of the Trump era.

Indeed, today’s unpopular announcement may have been exactly what two of Trump’s biggest donors, Sheldon Adelson and Bernard Marcus, and what one of his biggest inaugural supporters, Paul Singer, paid for when they threw their financial weight behind Trump. Marcus and Adelson, who are also board members of the Likudist Republican Jewish Coalition, have already received substantial returns on their investment: total alignment by the U.S. behind Israel, next week’s move of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and the official dropping of “occupied territories” to describe the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Adelson, for his part, was Trump and the GOP’s biggest campaign supporter. He and his wife Miriam contributed $35 million in outside spending to elect Trump, $20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund (a super PAC exclusively dedicated to securing a GOP majority in the House of Representatives), and $35 million to the Senate Leadership Fund (the Senate counterpart) in the 2016 election cycle.

Trump, who had previously complained that Adelson was seeking to “mold [Marco Rubio] into the perfect little puppet,” quickly snapped around and echoed Adelson’s hawkish positions on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem after Trump won the Republican nomination and secured Adelson’s backing.

Source: https://lobelog.com/three-billionaires-paved-way-for-trumps-iran-deal-withdrawal/

Breaking News, Trump withdraws from Iran deal, reimposes ‘highest level’ of sanctions

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by Joel Gehrke  & Gabby Morrongiello

President Trump said Tuesday he would walk away from the Iran nuclear agreement, a decision he took after concluding that the deal has emboldened Iran and prevents the U.S. from keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

“I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal,” Trump said in a White House press conference.

“We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanction,” he added before signing a declaration to impose those sanctions. “Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States.”

Tuesday’s announcement came a little more than six months after the president informed Congress he would not re-certify the agreement, which he had long hammered as an insufficient insurance policy against Iran’s weapons development program. Trump’s biggest grievance with the Obama-era deal has always been its so-called “sunset clause,” a provision that allows key limitations on Iran’s use and development of new technologies for uranium enrichment to be phased out beginning in 2025.

Israeli officials in particular had urged Trump to scrap the deal in the weeks leading up to his announcement, arguing that the current structure forces the U.S. and its allies to prepare for a day when Iran has nuclear weapons because of the agreement’s expiring constraints, according to a national security source close to the White House.

U.S. officials began working closely with their European counterparts in January to make improvements to the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, so Trump might be less inclined to withdraw from it entirely. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly informed France, Germany and the United Kingdom late last week that the president was dissatisfied with the proposed changes and planned to take unilateral action.